William Channing Gannett

William Channing Gannett was born today in Boston in 1840.  His father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, was one of the founders of the American Unitarian Association, which formalized the earlier separate Unitarian churches into a denominational structure,  His mother, Anna Tilden Gannett (who died when William was two years old), was a student of Ralph Waldo Emerson and a friend of Harriet Martineau.

He graduated from Harvard in 1860 and taught school for a year in Rhode Island, but did not believe that he was particularly good at it.  He was no more convinced that he could succeed in business or in the ministry, but he began studying at Harvard Divinity School.  He left before finishing to work with freed slaves on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, later describing this work as the most significant of his life. He returned to Boston a few years later because his father was in poor health, and eventually completed his studies at the Divinity School.  After graduation, he served churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and eventually Rochester, New York (his longest tenure: 1889-1908).  He was involved in the social causes of his time: including first abolition and later women's suffrage; Susan B. Anthony was on of his parishioners in Rochester.  Gannett and Anthony worked for years to have women admitted to the University of Rochester, and raised funds toward that campaign, which eventually succeeded.

Gannett wrote many hymns (some of which we have already seen here), and collaborated with Frederick Lucian Hosmer on two influential Unitarian collections: Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1885).  Both collections were revised and updated by the pair in later years.

He clearly believed in an indwelling God that was accessible to every person; the basis for this hymn as well as some of his others.

O God within, so close to me
That every thought is plain,
Be Rock, be Friend, and Comfort still,
And in your heaven reign!

That heaven is mine -- my very soul!
Your words are sweet and strong;
They fill my inward silences
With music and with song.

They send me challenges to right
And loud rebuke my ill;
They ring my bells of victory,
They breathe my "peace, be still!'"

They ever seem to say "My child,
Why seek me so all day?
Now journey inward to yourself,
And listen on your way."

William Channing Gannett, 20th cent.; alt.
Tune: EXETER  (C.M.)
Lowell Mason, 1823

Gannett the 'poet-preacher,' as a colleague described him, died in Rochester in December 1923, having continued his connection to that congregation as pastor emeritus since his 1908 retirement.

Six Years Ago: William Channing Gannett

Five Years Ago: William Channing Gannett

William Channing Gannett

Hymnwriter William Channing Gannett, born today in 1840, was a Unitarian minister who served several different congregations and was widely known in his time as a social reformer. Before the Civil War he had supported and worked for the cause of abolition. He interrupted his studies at the Harvard Divinity School to work with the New England Freedmen's Society in South Carolina during the war, helping former slaves and organizing a school. He apparently was planning to make this his life's work, but after four years his father's poor health brought him back to the North and he finally finished his studies. In later years he became a strong advocate for women's suffrage and education.

His first collection of hymns, Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) was followed five years later by The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems. Both books were collaborations with his friend Frederick Lucian Hosmer, and the two worked on these books for years afterward, bringing out a number of revised editions with new material.

Gannett worked to encourage ecumenism and unity among churches, belonging to organizations such as the Free Religious Association and the New York state chapter of the Parliament of Religions. In 1887 he wrote Things Commonly Believed Among Us, a broad statement which was adopted by the Western Unitarian Conference. Today's hymn expresses similar concepts, which is probably why it is not more well-known.

It sounds along the ages,

Soul answering to soul;

It kindles on the pages

Of every Bible scroll;

The psalmist heard and sang it,

From martyr lips it broke,

The prophet tongues out-rang it

Till sleeping nations woke.

From Sinai's cliffs it echoed,

It breathed from Buddha's tree,

It charmed in Athens' market,

It hallowed Galilee;

The hammer stroke of Luther,

The Pilgrims' seaside prayer,

The oracles of Concord,

One holy Word declare.

It calls -- and lo, new justice!

It speaks -- and lo, new truth!

In ever nobler stature

And unexhausted youth.

Forever on resounding,

And knowing nought of time,

Our laws but catch the music

Of its eternal chime.

William Channing Gannett, 1894

Tune: FAR OFF LANDS (7.6.7.6.D.)

Bohemian Brethren Hemlandssanger, 1892

What is "It"?

The explanation is not in the text. Modern-day Unitarian preachers will tell you that you're free to decide for yourself what "It" is (such as in this sermon), and that understanding might possibly suit Gannett, but in fact he did have something more concrete in mind. The text as it appeared in The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems was titled The Word of God. Hymnwriters of earlier days such as Philip Doddridge and Charles Wesley had often titled their texts only to see the titles abandoned over the years; while those titles sometimes give us a better insight into the texts than we might otherwise have, few are as essential as the title of this one.

The tune, which comes from the Bohemian Brethren (or Moravians), is named for the children's mission hymn by Percy Dearmer to which it is also matched: Remember all the people / Who dwell in far off lands., which is the kind of text that isn't sung much any more (due to lines such as Some work in sultry forests / Where apes swing to and fro).

In spite of Gannett's interest in ecumenism, his hymns have not received the same wider acceptance in other denominations as those of his collaborator Frederick Lucian Hosmer. Probably only two, Praise to the Living God, and Bring, O morn, thy music are known today in non-Unitarian collections.

One Year Ago: William Channing Gannett

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Today is the 170th birthday of Unitarian minister and hymnwriter Frederick Lucian Hosmer who was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, he was ordained in the Unitarian church shortly after graduation in 1869, and served his first church in Northboro, MA for three years before moving westward in his career, to churches in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and California.

As described here before, he and his friend William Channing Gannett produced two important Unitarian hymnals, Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1885), both of which they revised in later editions. According to a quote in the later Unitarian collection Hymns for the Celebration of Life (1964), Gannett was the better poet, Hosmer the better hymnwriter.

Hosmer wrote today's hymn for the 1891 commencement ceremony of Meadville Theological School in Meadville, PA. Canon Percy Dearmer, who was at least partly responsible for introducing Hosmer's hymns to Great Britain, believed this text to be "one of the noblest hymns in the language."

God's time shall come! Forever so
The passing ages pray;
And faithful souls have longed to know
On earth that promised day.

But the slow watches of the night
Not less to God belong;
And for the everlasting right
The silent stars are strong.

And lo, already on the hills
The flags of dawn appear;
Go forth in joy, ye prophet souls,
Proclaim the day is near.

The day in whose clear shining light
All wrong shall stand revealed,
When justice shall be throned in might,
And every hurt be healed.

When knowledge, hand in hand with peace,
Shall walk the earth abroad;
The day of perfect righteousness,
The promised day of God.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1891; alt.
Tune: CREDITON (C.M.)
Thomas Clark, 1807



Two Years Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

One Year Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

William Channing Gannett

The poet and minister William Channing Gannett (March 13, 1840 - July 25, 1923) was named for William Ellery Channing, one of the foremost Unitarian theologians of the day, who was Gannett's godfather and also conducted the christening. His father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, was also a prominent Unitarian minister in Boston, one of the founders of the American Unitarian Association and later its president.

The younger Gannett followed his father by graduating from Harvard in 1860. He was not sure that he was suited for the ministry, but he entered Harvard Divinity School. He left during his first year to go to South Carolina to work with a group of freed slaves. He spent the years of the Civil War there in the south, where he organized a school and helped that community gain a measure of self-sufficiency, something that many people in South Carolina had little interest in supporting.

When he returned to Boston he eventually finished his studies at the Divinity School and was ordained in 1868. In 1875 he published a biography of his father, who had died four years earlier. He also began a long collaboration with Frederick Lucian Hosmer, and together they compiled Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1885). Both books went through several editions and were very influential in Unitarian hymnody.

Samuel Atkins Elliot, a later president of the American Unitarian Association, wrote in Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1901) regarding their first hymnal:

...in which, after the manner of Samuel Longfellow (and Samuel Johnson - CWS), they adapted and rewrote orthodox hymns and lay poems for the liberal churches, thereby offending some who believed in sticking to the original texts.

Gannett and Hosmer wrote their own texts to their specifications, of course, so they did not have to be altered (though later generations have followed in their footsteps and done so). Gannett showed a particular affinity for the transcendentalist ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially in the concept that God's presence can be seen and felt in the wonders of nature. You can see this in the two hymns of his that I've already written about: Bring, O morn, thy music and Praise to the Living God, as well as in this hymn for today.

You hide within the lily,
A strong and tender Care
That wins the earthborn atoms
To glory of the air;
You weave their shining garments
Unceasingly and still,
Along the quiet waters,
In grasses down each hill.

We linger there in vigil
With Christ, who bent the knee
To watch the ancient lilies
In distant Galilee;
And still our worship deepens
And quickens into new,
And bright'ning down the ages
Your secret thrills us through.

Creator of the lily,
With you the heart e'er sings;
No leaf that dawns to petal
But hints of angel wings.
The flower horizons open,
The blossom vaster shows;
We hear your wide worlds echo,
“See how the lily grows.”

The yearnings of the nations,
Unfolding, thought by thought,
To holier lives are lifted,
To futures clear are wrought:
May all advance in justice,
While evils fade and fall,
Till chaos blooms to beauty,
Your purpose crowning all.

William Channing Gannett, 1873; alt.
Tune: MEIRIONYDD (7.6.7.6.D.)
William F. Lloyd, 1840

This text is taken largely from a website called Hymns of the Spirit Three, which modernizes and inclusifies the public domain texts from Hymns of the Spirit (1937), a popular Unitarian hymnal of the last century, which in turn was named for the 1864 hymnal compiled by Longfellow and Johnson. I admit that I've done a bit of further revision (it's hard to resist once you've been doing this for a while).

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Unitarian hymnwriter Frederick Lucian Hosmer was born today in 1840. It was during his years at Harvard Divinity School that he met William Channing Gannett, and the two of them remained close friends for the rest of their lives. They worked together on two influential collections, Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God In Hymns and Poems (1885) and worked over the years on several updated editions of these books. This collaboration was often compared to that of Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, lifelong friends who met in seminary and also produced two important hymnbooks for Unitarians and Universalists a generation earlier.

Hosmer's hymns spread to other denominational hymnals, particularly in the early years of the twentieth century after he was praised by John Julian in his monumental Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) and by Percy Dearmer, who used a number of Hosmer's texts in the British Songs of Praise (1925).

One thought I have, my ample creed,
So deep it is and broad,
And equal to my every need—
It is the thought of God.

Each morn unfolds some fresh surprise,
I feast at life’s full board;
And rising in my inner skies
Shines forth the thought of God.

I ask not far before to see,
But take in trust my road;
Life, death, and immortality
Are in my thought of God.

To this their secret strength they owed
The martyr’s path who trod;
The fountains of their patience flowed
From out their thought of God.

Be still the light upon my way,
My pilgrim staff and rod,
My rest by night, my strength by day
O blessèd thought of God.

Frederick L. Hosmer, 1880; alt.
Tune: ROCHESTER (C.M.)
Aaron Williams, 1764

Hosmer successfully pastored Unitarian congregations across the country, and moved to California in 1900, intending to live in retirement. However, he then agreed to serve as the interim minister of the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, and ended up staying until 1904. During that time he established a strong musical tradition there which is still upheld today. A pipe organ was installed, the organist's salary was competitive, and the choir gained paid section leaders. Following his second retirement he was appointed minister emeritus by the congregation, which paid him a monthly stipend until his death in 1929.


One Year Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Creation Speaks In Praise

Today we look at another hymn that is generally used at the opening of a service. It comes from Jewish origins, but has appeared (in one form or another) in many Christian hymnals as well over the last century.

Praise to the living God!
All praisèd be the Name,
Which was, and is, and is to be,
And still the same!
The one eternal God,
Ere aught that now appears;
The first, the last: beyond all thought,
God's timeless years!

Formless, all lovely forms
Declare this loveliness;
Holy, no holiness of earth
Can God express.
Lo, God is over all,
Creation speaks in praise,
And everywhere, above, below,
God's will obeys.

God's spirit floweth free,
High surging where it will;
In prophet’s word God spoke of old;
And speaketh still.
Established is God's law,
And changeless it shall stand,
Deep writ upon the human heart,
On sea or land.

Eternal life hath God
Implanted in the soul;
This love shall be our strength and stay,
While ages roll.
Praise to the living God!
All praisèd be the Name,
Which was, and is, and is to be,
And still the same.

Daniel ben Judah, 14th cent.
tr. Newton Mann and Max Landsberg, c. 1885
adapt. William Channing Gannett, 1910; alt.
Tune: LEONI (6.6.8.4.D.)
Synagogue melody; adapt, Meyer Leoni, c. 1770

Daniel ben Judah lived in Rome in the fourteenth century. He was a Jewish liturgical poet and a judge, and wrote the original text of this hymn, called the Yigdal, which summarized the thirteen basic articles of the Jewish faith as established by Maimonides. It was originally sung in alternating verses by the cantor and synagogue congregation.

Around 1770, Thomas Olivers, a follower of John Wesley, heard the Yigdal at the Duke's Place Synagogue in London, sung by the congregation's cantor, Meyer Leoni (or Lyon), and was so impressed that he wrote a hymn, The God of Abraham praise, partially taken from the Yigdal but with several Christian references added, and written for the tune that Leoni sang. Olivers's version has appeared in many hymnals, though generally not including all twelve stanzas.

A century later, Unitarian minister Newton Mann collaborated with his friend, the rabbi Max Landsberg, on a more faithful versified translation of the Yigdal, but it was not in the same meter as Leoni's tune. Some years later, William Channing Gannett adapted the Mann/Landsberg translation into this meter, to be used with this tune. Some hymnals use this version, some the earlier version by Olivers, and some have even used versions including stanzas from both.

The Crystal of the Snow

It's March and I was really looking forward to spring. Unfortunately, we've had more snow, and not the kind that will melt away in a day or so. I really need a hymn today to give me a different perspective on winter.

All beautiful the march of days,
As seasons come and go;
The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought
The crystal of the snow;
Hath sent the hoary frost of heav'n,
The flowing waters sealed,
And laid a silent loveliness
On hill and wood and field.

O'er white expanses sparkling pure
The radiant morns unfold;
The solemn splendors of the night
Burn brighter through the cold;
Life mounts in every throbbing vein,
Love deepens round the hearth,
And clearer sounds the angel hymn,
"Good will to all on earth."

O thou from whose unfathomed law
The year in beauty flows,
Thyself the vision passing by
In crystal and in rose,
Day unto day doth utter speech,
And night to night proclaim,
In ever-changing words of light,
The wonder of thy name.

Frances Whitmarsh Wile, 1911; alt.
Tune: FOREST GREEN (C.M.D.)
English folk melody,
arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

"The flowing waters sealed" sounds so much better than "ice." And the "silent loveliness / On hill and wood and field" doesn't have to be shoveled.

Frances Whitmarsh Wile wrote this hymn at the request of her friends William Channing Gannett and Frederick Lucian Hosmer, who were preparing an updated edition of their Unity Hymns and Chorals (first published in 1889) and wanted a hymn about winter. There was another verse in its first publication which was left out of later hymnals, perhaps because it takes the hymn a bit out of its winter theme.

O glory of the winter-land!
The peace of nature's rest!
And sweet the dream of coming spring
That stirs within its breast.
On move the resurrection hours,
The Easter heralds throng --
Till sudden bursts the miracle
Of blossom and of song!

But as with Lent, we want to hear about the other side of winter, and Easter provides a promise for both.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Frederick Lucian Hosmer (October 16, 1840 - June 7, 1929) was another Unitarian clergyperson and hymnwriter whose hymns are still sung today across many denominations.

He graduated first from Harvard University, then from Harvard Divinity School in 1869 and pastored churches in Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and California. He was involved with two important hymnbooks: Unity Hymns and Chorals, which he co-edited with William Channing Gannett, first appeared in 1880 and was followed by The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems in 1885. Both of these books were updated in a number of subsequent editions, so that his later hymns (as well as other more recent texts by others) could be included.

In the early years of the twentieth century, noted hymnographer John Julian wrote "Amongst Unitarian hymn writers of the last twenty years Mr. Hosmer is the most powerful and original known to us." Hosmer was also an authority on hymnody, and was asked to present a series of lectures on the subject at Harvard in 1903.

The following hymn was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Congregational Church in Quincy, IL (where Hosmer had been pastor from 1872 - 77).

O Light, from age to age the same,
Forever living Word,
Here have we felt thy kindling flame,
Thy voice within have heard.
Here holy thought and hymn and prayer
Have winged the Spirit’s powers,
And made these walls divinely fair,
Thy temple, God, and ours.

What visions rise above the years,
What tender memories throng
To fill the eye with happy tears,
The heart with grateful song!
Then vanish mists of time and sense,
They come, the loved of yore,
And one encircling Providence
Holds all forevermore.

O not in vain their toil who wrought
To build faith’s freer shrine;
Nor theirs whose steadfast love and thought
Have watched the fire divine.
Burn, holy Fire, and shine more wide!
While systems rise and fall,
Faith, hope, and charity abide,
The heart and soul of all.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1890; alt.
Tune: ST. MATTHEW (C.M.D.)
William Croft, 1708

Burn, Holy Fire! (from the last verse) is the title of a book by Jeremy Goring (2003). Goring writes:

"...Hosmer was referring to the Pentecostal fire of the Spirit. He believed that throughout history the upholders of religious "systems" had often sought to quench this fire. Standing as he did in the tradition of the New England Transcendentalists -- Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow -- he was convinced that in due course all such systems, having outlived their usefulness, would disappear."

Many of Hosmer's other hymns were written on similar themes, foretelling the coming of the promised reign of God, beyond doctrine and denomination.

But Naming Only Thee

I've talked about evening hymns before (since my church does evening worship regularly) but not about morning hymns. They're probably more useful because nearly every church has some kind of morning worship. Usually, (in my experience) a hymn about the morning will be the opening one in the service. There are quite a few of them out there; I'm not sure that anyone is really looking for more, but this is one that I've liked for a long time.

Bring, O morn, thy music! Night, thy starlit silence!
Oceans, laugh the rapture to the storm winds coursing free!
Suns and planets chorus, thou art our Creator,
Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Life and death, thy creatures, praise thee, mighty Giver!
Praise and prayer are rising in thy beast and bird and tree:
Lo! they praise and vanish, vanish at thy bidding,
Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Light us! lead us! love us! cry thy myriad nations,
Pleading in the thousand tongues, but naming only thee,
Weaving ever out thy holy, happy purpose,
Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Life nor death can part us, O thou Love eternal,
Shepherd of the wandering star and souls that wayward flee!
Homeward draws the spirit to thy Spirit yearning,
Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

William Channing Gannett, 1893; alt.
Tune: NICAEA (12.13.12.10)
John Bacchus Dykes, 1861

William Channing Gannett was a nineteenth-century Unitarian minister who served in many different places, including Rochester, NY, where Susan B. Anthony was one of his congregants. Together they helped raise money to send women to the University of Rochester, only a small part of Gannett's work in support of women's rights. Before his ordination he had spent four years helping freed African-American slaves in South Carolina.

The prolific Victorian composer John Bacchus Dykes wrote this very familiar tune for the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, usually sung to an equally well-known text.